


Magic, Obviously

by orphan_account



Category: Glee
Genre: Gen, Mini!Brittana
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-07
Updated: 2013-05-07
Packaged: 2017-12-10 16:11:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/787952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for Brittana Week Day 5 - Mini!Brittana.<br/>Escaping her bickering family on a hot late summer's day in the Lima Hills, Brittany finds herself lost in the woods, accompanied only by a scowling girl with twigs in her hair and an inclination toward exploring, who fell out of a tree and right into Brittany's lap.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Magic, Obviously

Brittany was tired of having to hold on to the side of her little sister’s pushchair. Her dad had promised a fun day out for the whole family, but all it had proved to be so far was a disenchanting mixture of Lily whining as her mom fussed and pushed a floppy sunhat further down her face, her father sighing with the heat, and Brittany swatting irritating little flies out of her eyes and feeling her shins getting scraped and cut by the long grass they were traipsing through.

It was too hot, a late August afternoon, and Brittany was trailing her heels on the ground, the midday sun beating down bright and heavy on the top of her head.

“Heck, Susan. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for some lunch…”

Brittany smiled up at her father and he gave her a wink in return, pushing his straggly chin length hair behind his ears and sweeping her up onto his broad shoulders. He ran with her up the grassy bank and she squeaked excitedly, bumping up and down with every loping stride, the two of them scanning the ground for an appropriate picnic spot.

“Here, Britt?” he asked, panting and coming to a halt by a slate-grey rock on the side of the hills that overlooked Lima. She reviewed the area and nodded promptly.

“Perfect, daddy,” she replied, hopping down from his shoulders with the easy grace of a dancer, waving her arms emphatically to garner her mom’s attention.

Susan Pierce huffed with every step she took up the bank, her younger daughter beating her little sock-clad feet against the sides of the stroller in protest at the ruts and lumps in the ground. She huffed even more when she started taking the picnic food out of the wicker hamper, and huffed louder still when her husband just lay back on the blanket and soaked up the sun. Brittany realised she needed some help and started setting up some paper plates with cocktail sausages and cheese crackers and those weird vegetable pastry things that her parents liked to eat but she couldn’t remember the name of.

Her father sat up and Lily sat back against a cushion and her mother crossed her legs and they began to eat, chatting and humming their appreciation, but Brittany was still bored. She tried some of the weird pastry thing but even that didn’t interest her. She liked every food, but if she were to pick two she didn’t like quite as much, it would be onion and mushrooms, and that was what it tasted of.

Lily craned to take some from her and Brittany saw no issue in giving it to her, wondering if Lily would like it any better than she did.

“Bitty,” Lily burbled with a grin, taking advantage of her parents’ averted eyes and shoving a slice of yellow pie in her mouth with gusto.

Brittany smiled and clapped her hands. “Yay, Lils.” Lily frowned and screwed up her face, swallowing and promptly opening her mouth to cry and vomit simultaneously.

“Oops,” Brittany murmured, sliding back as her mom jumped forward to catch Lily’s keeling body, toddler-vomit splashing all over the picnic blanket and the picnic plates.

“Jesus Christ, Daniel! Did you leave the quiche next to Lily? You know how her little belly takes bacon…oh, crap…”

“Uh…no, I didn’t…Fuck, Susan, don’t give _me_ the sicky plates -“

“Well, I’m the one holding the sicky daughter! And please don’t swear around the girls, you know -“

“Oh, come on, words are words. _You_ know I don’t stand for that bullshit. Did you bring the spare t-shirt and shorts?”

“No, you were supposed to pack them! You are _impossible,_ oh my _god._ ”

Lily howled, opening and closing her mouth like a goldfish and wriggling in Susan’s arms.

“Well, you’re the one who sprung this goddamn walk on me! It’s too hot, I told you, it’s too hot! I was bound to forget something! Did you listen? Did you _fuck!”_

“Language!”

“Is language, and the girls need to realise that words are just derived from their social meaning…”

“Are you, Daniel Pierce of Lima, Ohio, going to change the meaning of the word _fuck_? Are you a fuck _wit?_ ”

Brittany wasn’t listening anymore. A butterfly had flown past their blanket and her crying sister and arguing parents and so she had decided to follow it. Grabbing a pack of crackers, she set off down the side of the hill and into the small patch of woodland that lay slightly further down The Limas.

**

Twenty minutes later and the butterfly was gone but Brittany was still in the woods, looking around desperately, trying to work out the direction from which she came.

She sat down on a severed tree trunk, her bottom lip wobbling pitifully and her heart pounding wildly, her eyes fixed on the little stream that trickled ahead of her. There was a rustling and Brittany thought perhaps she could hear some words spoken from the leaves, but she dismissed the thought as quickly as it had come on.

She was contemplating just giving up and sobbing into her blue dinosaur t-shirt for the rest of the day, rationing her crackers and sleeping under a large leaf, but a crash from somewhere on her left side startled her into sitting up alert once more and she found herself suddenly face to face with a tiny, dark girl, who had twigs in her hair and mud smeared beneath her right eye.

They stared at one another, unsure. The dark girl looked hostile, poised like a cat at the foot of the tree from which she had fallen, and Brittany blinked with confusion because she had been alone but now she wasn’t.

“Hello!” Brittany decided to break the silence with a friendly address, waving awkwardly and taking a slight step towards the girl who stood on the other side of the stream, glaring.

“Who are you?” the girl said sharply, clenching her fists and scowling. She narrowed her eyes and rubbed at some dirt on her cheek. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m Brittany S. Pierce. It’s lovely to meet you.” Brittany favoured her mom’s more conventional greeting over her dads - he always said ‘if you want to kiss someone, kiss them. Hug them, hug them,’ because people sometimes found that a bit strange. “I’m lost.”

“How old are you?” The girl warily straightened her back and tried to hide a wince, still staring at Brittany with an intensity that made Brittany feel like she was two foot tall.

“I’m seven,” Brittany announced proudly. “Eight in…some months…What’s your name?”

“Santana,” the girl said, her voice still harsh but her gaze less steely. “I’m seven, too.”

Brittany frowned. “You’re really small,” she said matter-of-factly, cocking her head to the side to get a better look at Santana the tree-dweller.

Santana scowled again. “So what?”

“So…nothing.” Brittany backtracked, remembering what her mother had told her about pointing out things that were obvious - ‘just because your father does it, it doesn’t mean you should’. “Are you hurt?”

“No…not really. It’ll just be a bruise.” Santana shrugged her shoulders, finally lowering her gaze to the ground and scuffing her stained sneaker in a spot of mud beside the water.

Brittany frowned again. She had heard Santana hit the ground and it was not with little force. “What are _you_ doing here? Did you try and jump?”

“I’m exploring. Yeah. Where you lost from?” Santana said in that same sharp, virulent tone, looking Brittany up and down with renewed curiosity.

“The other side of the hill…I came with my mommy and daddy for a picnic, because it’s sunny.” Brittany seemed to suddenly remember that she was lost and sat down again heavily, her eyes clouding with tears. “My sister threw up everywhere so I followed a butterfly to the woods, and I don’t know how to get back…”

Santana looked at Brittany with a new expression. Peeking through her fingers Brittany noticed it was slightly pained. She also noticed that Santana’s body moved forward and backward in small, sharp bursts, as if she were motioning to sit beside Brittany but simultaneously talking herself out of it. She was clearly uncomfortable, clueless; Brittany longed for her best friend Kurt to be sitting next to her, his arm around her shoulder, soothing her.

Santana finally took a tentative step forward and grabbed Brittany’s wrist, tugging her to her feet and pulling her over the stream, through a patch of tickly leaves and through a little clearing so that the two of them ended up bathed in the green-tinged light of the woods.

“What are you doing?”

Brittany looked around, at the dainty heads of the bluebells, the dappled browns and greens of the tree trunks and the ferns, at the blue stones and the beautifully colourful wild flowers, at the girl in front of her, and decided that it didn’t matter.

“We’re exploring. Everyone wants to explore. It’ll cheer you up. Come on.”

Santana slipped her fingers through Brittany’s and started to run, west, into the heart of the forest.

Brittany giggled breathlessly.

**

Brittany had already forgotten she was lost by the time Santana slowed their joint pace, breathing heavily, bringing the two of them to a stop on the bank of a larger stream, one too wide for them to simply splash through.

“How are we going to get over it?” Brittany had been peppering their adventure so far with questions, comments, musings, and Santana had yet to reply with a full sentence. Brittany guessed that she was one of those people who didn’t like talking.

Santana just flicked her hair out of her eyes. “Do you have a hair tie?” she asked abruptly.

“No…sorry…”

“Mi abuela won’t let me get it cut and it’s always flying in my face,” Santana explained, and Brittany wondered why Santana’s abuela would let her run around the woods all alone where there were dangerous squirrels and plenty of branches to trip over, but she wouldn’t let her get her hair cut the way she wanted.

Brittany watched Santana try and work out how they were going to cross the stream, her face contorting with concentration and her little pink tongue poking out from between her lips. She unlinked their fingers and started pacing up and down the ledge, rubbing her hands on the pockets of her blue shorts and trying to wipe some of the dirt and sweat from her face with the collar of her polo shirt. Brittany just stood still and watched her, smiling.

“Do you like climbing trees?” Santana said suddenly, craning her neck up at an overhanging willow tree a little further down the stream and furrowing her eyebrows. “I think we could do that…”

She took Brittany’s hand and led her toward the base of the tree, squeezing it gently at Brittany’s apprehensive look.

“I don’t really know how to climb trees…” Brittany admitted, shyly glancing away from Santana’s piercing eyes. “I’ve never really tried…”

“Oh…Well, I’ll show you. It’s quite easy. You just sort of…don’t let go…”

Santana leapt into the air, hanging from a branch with her long scrawny arms, swinging her legs back and forth and levering herself up so she sat on her haunches at the base of the thickest branch of the willow tree. The whole tree shook with Santana’s efforts to balance herself, scattering long green leaves on the ground and onto Brittany’s head.

“Santana!” she shouted, running to the bottom of the tree as if she was about to catch her, “Get down!”

“No, silly. I’m fine,” Santana called back, her voice a little strained but a comfort to Brittany nonetheless. “Watch what I’m doing! You have to go down the end…and then jump!”

She shuffled along the branch, further and further, until the wood creaked beneath her and Brittany squeezed her eyes shut with fear and listened to Santana’s tarzan yell as she swung herself forwards and flew through the air, landing on all fours on the other side of the stream.

“See! It’s fine!”

_(At sixteen, Brittany still held her breath even though she knew Santana was the best drainpipe climber in the Midwest, if not the whole United States. Perhaps the entire northerm hemisphere.)_

Santana grinned, her teeth flashing white in the sunlight. Brittany drew no comfort from Santana’s words nor her actions, her heart pounding as the stream morphed into the Amazon River and the dying willow tree into a huge Californian oak right before her eyes.

“Honestly, Britt. It’s alright. Just start at the bottom and like…crawl up. You’ll be okay.”

Brittany _was_ okay until the branch started creaking and she jumped and startled. Swaying wildly from side to side, she frantically tried to wrap her legs around the tree and cling on, but she knew it was to no avail and she was slipping.

“Ahhhh!” she screamed, still holding on, but not for much longer. She imagined smashing into the water and sinking, deeper and deeper, until nothing could save her and a crocodile ate her, leaving only her dinosaur t-shirt behind.

The next few things happen so quickly that Brittany struggles to keep track. One, she falls, the smaller branches whipping her bare arms and legs on her tumble down into the stream. Two, she lands on something pointy and wiry, but not wet. Three, her and the thing that caught her flop down into the stream together, leaving her sat waist-deep in tepid water.

Four, she realises she’s had her eyes closed this whole time and opens them to see Santana sitting opposite her, muttering in Spanish and covered in various types of pondweed.

“You saved me…” she breathes in wonder, her heart finally slowing its furious beating, peering at the cross-faced and bedraggled girl with whom her legs are still tangled.

Santana shrugged and wiped some water droplets from her forehead. “Come on. We need to dry out…”

“Thank you.”

Brittany launched herself forward and wrapped her arms around Santana’s skinny frame and damp t-shirt, sitting up on her knees in the middle of the stream and holding Santana’s head against her chest. She felt some muffled protestations but holds on until she could feel Santana relax and start to hug her back, the slightest pressure pushing on the small of her back.

“It’s okay,” Santana said when Brittany had let her go. “We just need to dry out.”

“Like how?” Brittany asked, pulling herself out of the ditch the stream ran through with ease. “Could we be like…hung on a washing line?”

“Eh?”

“Look.” Ahead of them was a hazel tree, wizened and old, but strong. “Could we like, hang upside down?”

Santana scrutinized it, her face wrinkling as it had before. “Are you sure? You fell…”

“Do you not think I can do it?”

“No, no. I do, but just…be careful?”

“Why is there one rule on me being careful and another for you? It’s not fair, San.” Brittany pouted, hurt. “Do you actually think I can do it?”

“Yeah!”

“Show me how, first.”

Santana looked up again, biting her lip. “Go up the trunk,” she said, her words mimicking her actions. “There’s loads of little hand holds and stuff, so just like…” she arched her back and leant into the tree, pulling herself up steadily, arm by arm.

“Magic.”

“What is?”

“The hand holds. The wood-nymphs or the leprechauns must have put them there for explorers like us.”

“Oh. Yeah…” Santana smiled, swinging her body around the trunk and sitting in the middle of the thickest branch, about a metre and a half from the ground. “Then hold on, and just fall…”

She hooked her legs around the branch and leant back, her hair tumbling in waves and her t-shirt riding up to her ribs.

“See?” she asked Brittany, who giggled. “What’s funny?”

“Your mouth looks…really weird upside down…” Brittany chuckled, pinching Santana’s nose to try and dispel her newly-formed dirty look. “I think I can do it, yeah.”

“Okay,” Santana said, letting her arms dangle down so they were about thirty centimetres from the ground. “Watch out.”

“What are you doing?”

Santana rolled her legs up so they were extended fully, braced her arms, and dropped down from the tree into a wonky handstand.

“What are you doing?” Brittany asked again, stood awkwardly beside Santana’s crouching figure. “You just got up…”

Santana straightened her back and wiped the fresh dirt from her hands on her blue (brown) shorts and frowned incredulously. “Making sure you get up okay, too.”

Brittany smiled. “Oh, okay. Shall I like…go?”

“Go!”

With a nod, Brittany reached up the tree trunk and grabbed the first two hand holds. She wobbled, unused to the movement.

“I’m right here…You can do it!”

Brittany felt Santana’s hands on her back as proof and took a deep breath, her feet lifting from the ground as she hauled herself up, slowly and tentatively.

“Santana?” she called nervously after about a minute.

“Mmm?”

“Where’s the nearest foot thing? I can’t see.”

“Move your right leg up…Your other right, Britt.”

Brittany blushed. “Where is it?”

“Bit further up. You got it…Yeah! Now, swing your bum round…”

Suddenly, Brittany was there. On the branch, looking down at a beaming Santana who clapped her hands together and whooped. She smiled uncertainly, eyeing up the branch before her with apprehension.

“Just slide along! I’m right beneath you.” Santana opened her arms up as wide as they would go to prove her words. “Don’t worry!”

“Oh…” Brittany murmured, feeling very much unsupported and vulnerable, perched on only a postcard-wide bit of wood, what felt like a hundred metres from the ground. She shuffled as far as she could without feeling like she was about to plummet to her death and called to Santana, “What now?”

“Just lean back. I’ll hold your legs…”

Brittany felt two hands gripping her ankles and just decided to go for it, sitting back against nothing, closing her eyes.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, rocking back and forth a little, like a pendulum. “That was okay!”

“Ima let go now, okay?”

“Yep!”

Brittany opened her eyes and stared around her. She was vaguely aware of Santana’s movements on her left hand side, but mainly fixated on the beauty of the woods around her. She relaxed her arms and gazed around happily, blinking at the brief flutter of dark hair next to her.

“Hi,” she said, linking her fingers through Santana’s.

“Hi.” Santana yawned. “I’m tired.”

“Explorers don’t get tired.”

“Do too.” Santana closed her eyes and smiled ponderously, her eyelashes long and thick and casting shadows over the rest of her face. Brittany thought she was the prettiest person she had ever seen.

**

“Hey, San!”

Santana cracked open an eyelid, wincing at the light. Brittany was sat on the branch now, swinging her legs back and forth and pointing at a tree across from them. “What?” she asked, hauling herself up to sit beside Brittany, feeling the blood drain from her head with relief.

“You just missed it.”

“Missed what?”

“There was a leprechaun. Making some hand holds, for explorers. On that tree, right there.”

Santana knew that leprechauns weren’t real. Partly because her and her sometimes-partner-in-crime Noah had once followed a rainbow all the way through fields and dirt roads to the neighbouring town of Elida and had discovered nothing but a Methodist Church and concerned adults, but also because she just didn’t believe in things very easily. She was sort of jaded.

And she preferred imagining stories where she was the lone survivor of a shipwreck, left to fend for herself in the wild, leaping through trees and making friends with the animals and finding a place where she belonged.

Brittany looked at her expectantly.

“And I missed it?” she said, pouting and shaking her head. “How big was it? I’ve never seen a leprechaun before.”

“ _Really_?” Brittany’s mouth dropped open in shock. “I see them all the time! They’re like, the size of your hand. Well, my hand. It’ll probably grow up to be about…your size. So, little.”

Santana didn’t even balk at the frank insults coming from Brittany’s mouth. “How do _you_ get to see them so much?”

“If you believe in something enough, you get to see it everywhere.” Brittany paused, musing. Santana smiled. “Like, my daddy really believes in something…I think it’s ‘free speech’, and he sees it everywhere. My mom just says that people don’t know when to be quiet and she gets grumpy, but my daddy says it’s…insp…really good. And he sees what he sees.” When Santana nods silently, she asks, “What do you believe in?”

“Um, what do you believe in?”

“Leprechauns. Duh, that’s why I see them everywhere. What do you see?”

“I don’t know…” Santana felt her cheeks reddening, a feeling of uncharacteristic shyness sweeping over her.

“I think you probably see things that can be climbed.”

“Huh?” Santana blurted out, her confusion prevailing. “You what…?”

“You believe that everything can be climbed. When you look at something, you see something that can be climbed.”

“ _What?_ ” Santana whined, bobbing her knee up and down in frustration. “I don’t get it!”

“Maybe it’s not that then…” Brittany paused, humming in thought. “What do you like to do?”

“Explore, I guess.”

“Well, then you’re an explorer!”

Santana frowned again, “How is that what I see?”

“You believe in exploring. You’re brave. When you see a tree, you think, ‘what’s on the top of that tree?’, and you go and look because you’re brave and intrepid and you believe that there’s something there that needs exploring.” Brittany blinked triumphantly and Santana stared into her bright blue eyes.

“Am not brave.”

“You totally are. I don’t know anyone who would jump from a tree across a river, and I know at least ten people.”

Santana blushed again, the corners of her mouth lifting ever-so slightly.

“So, is there anywhere else in these woods to explore?”

“Of course!”

Santana leapt from the branch and held her arms out for Brittany to jump into, and took her counterpart by the hand, leading her through the nearest clearing, clambering over an overturned tree trunk and skipping past a tadpole pool.

**

“San?”

“Yeah?”

“Whatcha thinking?”

“Huh?”

“Are you making up a story?”

“Huh?”

“In your head? About two best friends, lost in a forest?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Good. Me too.”

“Wait, are we best friends now?”

“Yes…Are we not? Because in my story we have matching t-shirts, and that’s something only best friends have.”

“Oh, yeah. We are.”

**

It was still light, but judging by the position of the sun - now shining right in her eyes instead of on top of her head - Brittany guessed that she had been lost for ages. Well, not exactly lost.

Not lost, but wandering through the woods with her new best friend, sharing stories about discovery and valiant explorers, with the occasional pirate (Santana’s idea - ‘Most islands have unfriendly locals, mi abuela told me’) and the odd talking bird (Brittany’s idea - ‘I’m pretty sure they can talk anyway, we just don’t understand them’) and how these explorers were blissfully happy because they were best friends and they loved one another.

The day had not been without its mishaps, though; Brittany had walked straight through a patch of angry nettles and had stings littering her lower legs, and Santana - having tried to fling herself from tree to tree, again, again finding no success - nursed bloody knees and a graze on her arm. But they were happy, too, like the explorers from their stories.

The two of them were sat in a clearing, threading daisies and wildflowers through one another’s stems, making beautiful long friendship bracelets.

Santana’s was a pattern, set out neatly, daisy-bluebell-red wildflower-buttercup-pink wildflower, and Brittany’s was a mess of whatever she thought looked nicest.

“No fair,” Santana commented, “yours is better than mine.”

“Well, it’s okay, because I’m giving it to you. That’s how friendship bracelets work. Right?”

“Oh, right…”

Brittany smiled blithely and rolled her eyes. Santana could be so silly. They worked in silence for about half an hour, already in sync - passing one another flowers, helping one another poke holes in stubborn stems, leaning back to back against one another - until a thought popped into Brittany’s head at the sight of the long shadow of a tree before her.

“Hey, Santana?”

“Yeah?”

“Where are you from?”

“Um, soy de Lima Heights Adjacent. Why?”

“Oh. I’m from Westside…Do you know how to get back?”

Santana shrugged her shoulders. “Yes. How would I have got here?”

“Well, I don’t know. Magic, obviously.”

Brittany felt Santana’s back shake with a giggle against her own.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” Brittany asked, unable to hide her curiosity any longer. “Why aren’t you -“

“There’s nothing to do at home. Mami and papi are always busy and abuela just likes to watch Spanish soaps all day. Here is so much more interesting…I would come every day if I could.”

“Do you just…go?” Brittany turned around to face Santana, smudging a little dirt off of Santana’s cheek with her thumb. She felt a little sad, but she didn’t know why. When she felt like this her mom would ruffle her hair and tell her not to worry, she was just ‘intuitive’.

“Yeah…Apart from when I have school.” Santana shuddered at the mere thought.

“And does your abuela just let you? What is an abuela, by the way?”

“Abuela is abuela…and yeah, she just says that I should get home before my mami realises that I’m gone. And she’s never back before dark, so I just have to be at home when it’s dark.”

“And what if you didn’t get back?”

Santana bit her lip. “That hasn’t happened yet, not properly. But she’d be worried, maybe…”

“Oh,” Brittany said sadly, “I think my mommy is probably super-worried about where I am. Oh…” she mumbled, remembering how she had just run away from her family and left them on the side of the hill. “I think we should go back…”

The sun was still shining and she didn’t _want_ to go home, but she knew that her mom would be even more afraid if it were dark outside.

“Oh.” Santana sounded sad, too. “Don’t you like it?”

“I really like it…but nobody knows where I am, not really…They’re probably kind of scared.”

“Oh, right. Okay, we can go back if you want. Come on.”

Santana rose to her feet and brushed herself down, tugging Brittany with her.

**

Brittany was amazed that Santana actually knew where they were and how to get back to Lima. She just seemed to _know_ , cutting through thick areas of trees and over bone-dry muddy expanses littered with dried-up leaves and flower heads and the occasional abandoned chair until they reached a fence - which she easily hopped, lifting Brittany over afterwards - and they were suddenly back on the road, wandering slowly in the direction of their town.

“Wow,” Brittany said, “that was pretty quick. You’re definitely magic. I’m sure of it.”

Santana chuckled. “Come on. You have to walk on the side of the road where the cars are coming at you, if they come, and _you_ have to walk closest to the bushes.”

“How come?”

“It’s safer, Britt.”

After a few minutes of walking, Santana asked: “Where even _is_ Westside?”

“Um…do you know where the library is?”

“No.”

“The _big_ Catholic Church?”

“I think so…”

“It’s near there. I know my way back from the church because that’s where I do dance classes…”

Brittany took another sluggish step, wincing as the dust from the road clung to her nettle stings. Santana hadn’t been able to find any dock leaves to sooth the welts on her legs, and now she was back walking on a boring road covered in little stones and sandy powder, they were hurting even more.

“You okay?”

“My legs hurt…they’re like, on fire.”

“Piggyback?”

“Are you sure? I’m bigger than you…”

Santana scoffed. “I’m stronger than I look!”

“Fine!”

Santana poked her tongue out cheekily and Brittany did the same, the two of them bursting into light peals of laughter at the same time.

“I’m coming!” Brittany took a running jump and hooked her legs around Santana’s waist and her arms around Santana’s neck, realising forlornly that Santana had only been walking so slowly earlier because of her.

They walked through Eastside, Lima Heights, Lima Heights Adjacent, the town centre, Leafy Point, past the Catholic Church, Brittany lazily giving directions with her hands as they entered Westside.

“We’re nearly home,” she said as Santana turned a corner, “it’s a block from here.”

Santana wheezed her approval and Brittany dropped from her shoulders, blushing apologetically. “I’m so sorry…I forgot I was even on you…You’re like, the best ride ever.”

Santana giggled, catching her breath and rubbing the knots out of her muscles. “Thanks…”

She came to a stop, then, awkwardly shuffling from foot to foot in the middle of the pavement.

Brittany’s brows knitted together in perplexion. “What are you doing?”

“Uh…You’re home, right?”

“Well, don’t you want a drink or something? You probably need a band-aid or five for your knees anyway…”

Santana looked at the ground. “Are you sure I can come in?”

“Yeah! You can have a pop tart too, if you want. I got the blueberry ones, but we have some vanilla ones as well.”

**

Brittany led Santana for the final few minutes of their adventure, clutching her hand as they neared her house. She smiled at Santana before she knocked the door and said “I think we have some Kool-Aid, too…”

Her mom opened the door with something akin to a yowl and a scream and swept Brittany up into a fierce hug, shouting “Daniel!” and depositing Brittany with a thunk on the ground.

Brittany’s dad appeared in the doorway behind her, holding Lily on his hip and looking extraordinarily relieved. “Jesus Christ, Britt, thank god you’re back…”

“What were you thinking?! Where were you?! The whole neighbourhood is out in the hills looking for you, Brittany! We had to wait at home! We’ve been so worried!” Susan Pierce began screaming and gripped Brittany by the shoulders, shaking her and pulling her close for another hug at the same time.

“I went to the -“ Brittany started, taking hold of Santana’s hand once more and wincing at the shrillness of the noise coming from her mother’s mouth.

“Daniel!” her mom yelled, “Call everyone! Tell them she’s home! Thank Officer Bartlett too, he’s been wonderful…Oh, give me Lily…You go and tell her!”

Brittany’s father passed Lily to her mother and bent down, crushing Brittany in his own hug and shaking his head. “Where were you, kiddo? Were you playing a trick on us?” He stood up straight, folding his arms. Brittany smiled because her dad was like an overgrown teddy bear with a long higgledy-piggledy beard, and when he folded his arms and tried to look scary, he just looked silly.

“No…I followed a butterfly to the woods and then -“

“Who is _that_?” Her father had just noticed Santana stood behind Brittany, and shifted his daughter aside to peer at the strange girl beside her. “Are you a friend from school? Did you think it would be funny to get her to run off?”

He took a small step closer to Santana and raised his hand over her head - Brittany knew it wasn’t threatening, wasn’t aggressive, it was just her father’s way because he was a big believer in the power of proxemics in communication and he liked to touch people on the shoulder so they would realise that he was a friend - and she flinched, cowering slightly into Brittany’s side.

“I…”

Brittany cut in. “Santana found me in the woods. She saved my life after I fell out of a tree and into a lake,” she stated, nodding her head resolutely. “She’s a hero, daddy.”

Daniel narrowed his eyes. “A hero, huh?”

“A hero!”

“You hear that, Susan? We have a hero in our midst. The safety of our daughter has been ensured by this four foot four child. We must revere her!” He grinned at the girls and bowed to his knees in front of Santana, kissing the back of her hand fervently. Susan and Lily clapped from the kitchen, grinning with relief.

Santana giggled shyly, her cheeks tinging with pink. Brittany giggled too, tugging Santana after her and into the kitchen where there was a cold glass of milk and the promise of pop tarts.

**

Daniel insisted on dropping Santana home when it began to get dark outside, hiding any surprise he had when she had told him that she would ‘just run back home’ with a dramatic gasp and an exclamation of, ‘well, I can’t have my daughter’s hero needlessly using up her precious energy!’.

“Shall I stay in the car?” he offered as they drew up outside Santana’s abuela’s house. “I’ll stay in the car.”

Brittany jumped out of the back door, running round to open Santana’s for her.

“This is your house?”

“Abuela’s. You shouldn’t come any further down the drive. She’ll probably throw a shoe at you.”

Brittany smiled. “I don’t want today to end, San,” she said sadly, her lower lip wobbling.

“Hey, don’t be sad.”

“But I am sad. I’m a sad little panda.”

“Today was pretty awesome, right? Best adventure ever.”

Brittany sniffed. “Best adventure ever,” she said, sniffing again and throwing herself into Santana’s arms. She grasped her tightly, wrapping both arms around her back and hugging her, earnestly, roughly, like she was never going to let go.

Santana hugged her back, burying her head in the crook of Brittany’s shoulder. “Best adventure ever,” she agreed.

Brittany leant her upper body back and faced Santana fully, her arms still around her neck. She pressed a soft kiss against her lips, because it felt right - if you want to kiss someone, kiss them - and felt Santana’s smile against her mouth. Her cheeks were damp.

“Don’t be sad. We’re still best friends, right?” Santana said eventually, pulling away from Brittany so both of their hands were linked but they stood apart.

“Yeah…best friends.” Santana started to move away, taking slow steps towards her house. “Um, bye.”

“If you ever feel like not going out all alone, you know where I am.”

“Gotcha.”

Brittany blew Santana a kiss and she caught it and shoved it into her pocket, turning her back and opening her front door.


End file.
